Gerber LLC serves as guide for first-generation entrepreneurs

Sunday

Mar 19, 2017 at 4:15 AM

By Mike Mahoney For Columbus CEO Magazine

Randy Gerber learned early on that those who own their own businesses tend to weather rough seas a little better, viewing challenges as opportunities to improve. That observation prompted him to focus his consulting services exclusively on entrepreneurs.

Question: Who are your customers and how do you find them?

Answer: Our clients are entrepreneurs and, in general, we find them from referrals from clients or referrals from what we call centers of influence, such as accountants, lawyers and insurance agents and things of that nature. It has to be a first-generation entrepreneur. We have made exceptions, and in the past year, I think we've made two, and I'm glad we did both. We have a lot of manufacturers, as well as a lot of service firms, distribution, restaurateurs, a fair amount of technology, professional-service firms, some oil and gas people and safety, logistics.

Q: How did Gerber LLC evolve from being a typical Raymond James broker to what it is today?

A: In 1990, when I graduated from Ohio State, I founded it as a general financial-planning firm, and it evolved into a firm that serves exclusively first-generation entrepreneurs. In 2001, I recognized (that specialization), in 2003, we started focusing, and in 2005, we became exclusive. Our average client was around $3-5 million in sales. Fast-forward to today, and our average client is in the $30 million range. Focusing on first-generation entrepreneurs was really unusual for our industry, and a lot of folks thought I was dead crazy, candidly, so much so that it made me wonder if I was crazy to focus around this very small market niche.

Q: What sparked your interest in entrepreneurs?

A: My real wake-up call was when I received an endorsement from the Columbus Chamber of Commerce to provide 401(k) plans to their members in 1993. We met with a lot of small business owners, and that's where I really got exposed to a lot of entrepreneurs.

Q: What did you learn from them?

A: Well, fast-forward to 2000 when the market corrected, the first time in my 10 years in business. Those who did holistic planning, while they were unhappy, they understood because they had a plan. Those who didn't, it was an emotional disaster. But I noticed our business-owner clients weren't rattled. They actually looked at it as an opportunity to tweak their business, to increase market share, to sharpen the edges a little bit. Their glass is always half-full, they're always inventing, they're always experimenting, and failure is the first step toward success.

Q: Why does combining help on business, wealth management and personal life work well for your clients?

A: With our 200 clients, we get to see firsthand not only the financial proof but the emotional proof. We're talking to the spouse, saying how do you feel about spending on the bigger house or buying a quarter-million-dollar piece of equipment? Or should we hire that administrative assistant? We see how they make those decisions between a personal spend and a business spend.

Q: What's ahead for Gerber LLC?

A: We're going to grow our format and branch. We launched in 2016 a new product called Emerging Entrepreneur, which has been successful. It's for companies between $300,000 to $2 million in sales. It's a classroom-based product. You meet monthly for up to five hours on predefined topics. So, for example, the first month is you walk out with a written business plan. The second month is cash flow vs. profit. Third session is financial reporting. Fourth is financial modeling and capitalization. It's education, but action, too. They walk away with something after every session, and they walk into the next session with what they did. It's a classroom-based environment, so it's facilitated by us, but also peer-to-peer.